This is the blog for photos and reflections of my visits to other places, beginning in 2013. Previous blogs are linked on the main pages of my photo collections on flickr.

HAPPY TRAILS!

Saturday, July 13, 2013

MACHRIE MOOR & BRODICK CASTLE

Our last full day on Arran, Friday the 12th, we hopped on a bus that skirted the southern shore on it's way to the western side of the island, then walked a 3 mile loop through sheep pastures and pheasant haunts (a highlight for Mike) to 3 rings of standing stones, dating back 4000 years. When I visit stone circles, I feel something; can't describe it really, so I'll just leave it at that.

While waiting for a bus to take us to the western shore transport hub of Blackwaterfoot, we were offered a ride there by some regular visitors to Arran, then hopped a bus that headed north around the island, basically completing the circle (or a bit more accurately, oval). We stopped off at Brodick Castle, originally built as a fort in the 1500s, then added onto in the 1600s and again in the 1800s when it was used as the hunting lodge of a string of Dukes of Hamilton. The gardens were fantastic and touring the castle was well worth the time and expense; volunteer guides in each room gave color to what we were seeing (no photos allowed inside).

Bus break in Whiting Bay

Views from the bus

Hiking into Machrie Moor

This stone is the 1 on the left in the photo above

Proof I was there - stone on the right 2 photos up

Picnic - mmmm, salmon pate on oaties with vegies and fruit

Lunchtime visitors

Blackwaterfoot scene

Bus views heading north

Lochranza Castle on the north tip of the island

Walking into the castle grounds

Enormous cork tree

The castle gardens

150 year old Bavarian summer house, built for the German bride of one of the Dukes of Hamilton

About Me

I've been a teacher for more than 34 years, recently retired from directing Structured Learning Centers for kids with autism and multiple disabilities in The Dalles, Oregon. I did my undergraduate work at Lewis & Clark College and my SpEd Masters at Portland State University. Gaining conversational ease in Spanish is an important professional and personal goal for me and I find attending Spanish schools in Latin America and volunteering with local organizations both productive and addictive. I'm hoping to help others with their goals along the way and have developed the Live and Learn in Latin America program to provide credit for immersion, volunteer, and cultural learning projects.
ALSO...In the course of my immersion studies in Latin America, I fell in love with the people of San Pedro La Laguna, Sololá, Guatemala and am working in cooperation with the Cooperativa Spanish School to match scholarship sponsors with promising students who would otherwise be limited to 6 years of school: BecaProject.org